While Feminism is an umbrella of movements that recognizes the various conditions in which women live, struggle and love, it is also its own greatest asset to respond to oppression and fight for women’s emancipation, liberation and equality. Intersectional feminism recognizes that certain groups of people face multi-layered identities and face interrelated repressions in life. It is within this frame of feminism that the struggle and activism of sexual minorities in Africa, who face homo/transphobia, discrimination and repression, has to be understood.

In ‘Western’ (Global Northern) discourses in academia, activist interventions or political statements, Africa (as the Global South more generally) is portrayed as patriarchal, traditionalist, homophobic and as being the antidote to a ‘progressive’ West/North when it comes to questions of Gender and LGBTIQ*. These projections ignore the fact that the repression of sexual and reproductive rights in Africa correlates in manifold ways with colonial history and global inequalities.

Therefore, feminist struggles for equal sexual and reproductive rights need to account for the entanglements between the so-called North and South when it comes to both repression and emancipation. We need to take seriously the diverse experiences and expertise of African activists and thinkers and aim for dialogue between African/Afro-diasporic and ‘Western’ activism.